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Sweet Imperfection
Copyright © 2015 by Libby Waterford
ISBN: 978-1-61333-813-1
Cover art by Tibbs Designs
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Sweet Imperfection
By
Libby Waterford
Chapter One
“Really? Twins? How wonderful. Congratulations!” Emma said, her voice a trifle too loud. She drained the rest of her beer in a long gulp. “And where’s your firstborn tonight?”
“Oh, Matt’s got him at the hotel so I could come out. Even though I can’t drink, it feels so good to be on my own for a few hours. Sometimes I really miss being single. You don’t know how lucky you are, Emma.”
Yeah, right. Ten years after graduating college, she was so lucky to be husbandless, boyfriendless, childless, and, currently, prospectless. She forced out a smile at Brooke. Her freshman roommate was three months pregnant with twins, showing it a little in the face and hips, but, otherwise, fantastic looking with a giant rock on her ring finger and a phone full of photos of her and her doctor-husband’s preschooler, Ethan, who was pretty damn adorable. Emma Chen-Delvaux didn’t know if she wanted to cry or throw her empty glass at the flower arrangement on their table. The gerbera daisies in Weston’s signature color—orange—were almost as cute as Ethan. She did neither, so she’d simply have to behave like the professional, thirty-two year old woman she was.
The classiness of Weston University’s tenth-reunion party had pleasantly surprised Emma. Even though she and her classmates were casually dressed in an effort to stay cool in the humid air of the early summer evening, the setting could have demanded formal wear. Festive twinkle lights adorned a billowy white tent under which sat dozens of tables. Servers bearing trays of modern cocktail-party staples, such as bacon-wrapped dates and mini cheeseburgers, made the rounds. Major plus—the open bar. Emma had been looking forward to this weekend with equal parts dread and enthusiasm, and thus far, it had met her expectations.
“So what have you been up to, Emma?” Brooke asked. “I can’t believe I haven’t seen you since graduation. You didn’t make our five-year reunion.”
“Yeah, I had a conflict.” Emma didn’t want to tell Brooke she’d gone to her boyfriend’s reunion in Miami that weekend after he’d begged her to go, only to dump her a month later for an underwear model he’d met on the subway. She sighed. He’d been a jerk. They all turned out to be jerks. Or emotionally unavailable. Or dumb. Or bad in bed. Was it too much to ask for a funny, considerate, halfway-intelligent guy who knew how to go down on a girl? Or was at least willing to take direction?
“Anyway, I’m pretty much constantly working. I’m the chief creative officer for a green advertising agency in Manhattan. It’s fabulous, but long hours.”
“That sounds so cool. I wish I could go back to work, but we decided I should wait until the twins are a bit older.”
Emma nodded in what she hoped was an understanding way. “Whenever I’m not at the office, I’m working on my house. I bought a brownstone in Brooklyn last year, but it needs a lot of TLC, and I’ve been trying to do much of it myself.”
“Good for you. We’re turning our second guest room into the twins’ room. I’m thinking yellow for the walls since we went totally all-out blue for Ethan’s room.”
It was useless to resist the tide of an expectant mother’s chatter, and after hearing way more than she ever needed to know about the horrors of morning sickness, Emma took the first opportunity she could to slip away from her old friend.
She could probably make it through another hour of similar conversations before she wanted to kill herself, and by then, the cocktails would be over. Maybe she could crash the five-year reunion party. She’d be willing to bet there weren’t many baby pictures being passed around there. They were still babies themselves.
Thirty-two wasn’t so bad. She’d worked hard and was proud of what she’d accomplished, but she’d always assumed she’d have someone to share it with. Her life was a series of checkboxes. She’d checked off college, move to New York, satisfying career, gorgeous house. Check, check, check. Even though half the page was complete, the empty boxes seemed to be larger, more important. Fall in love. Get married. Kid. Kid. Kid. Could she even have three kids? She might be cutting it close. Perhaps she’d get lucky and have twins like Brooke. Then she’d never be lonely.
She was getting ahead of herself. She hadn’t quite gotten to the point where she was considering the man-less option for having those kids, though knowing it was out there made her slightly less panicky.
Probably another beer would help in that department as well.
She stalked over to the bar. A vaguely familiar man, six inches taller than her five foot three and wearing an untucked blue linen shirt over jeans, stood in line in front of her. Obviously, he was someone from her college class, but she found it odd that she couldn’t place him right away. Maybe another beer wasn’t such a good idea. She edged around to peek at his face and instantly realized who he was.
“Nate? I almost didn’t recognize you.”
Nate Hirsch turned to her, drink in hand, and gave her a dazzling smile in return. He put down his drink and enveloped her in a bear hug, lifting her off her feet and swinging her around. “Emma! Wow.” He laughed and set her down.
Emma reveled in the warmth of his body and the strength he’d exhibited when he picked her up. She was fairly slim, and he wasn’t very tall, but he was strong. And he had short hair.
“Your hair,” she said, unable to stop herself from reaching up to touch his close-shaven sideburns.
“Yeah, I chopped it of
f a while back. It was time.”
“You look different.” Nate’s signature style in college had been a head of curly black hair that doubled the size of his head, sometimes pulled back with a shoestring. His new, sleek trim made him look older, more serious, and accentuated his cut cheekbones and long-lashed blue eyes. “You look like a grown up.”
“And you look exactly the same as you did when we were in school,” he said admiringly.
“Stop it. I do not,” she scoffed, secretly pleased. Nate had always been a flirt, but that didn’t make it any less fun to be the object of his flirtation. “I can’t believe— Has it been ten years since—”
“I last saw you,” he finished. They’d always had a way of completing each other’s sentences back in college when they’d shared the same group of friends. “Can I get you something?”
“Um, what are you drinking?”
“Soda water for me tonight,” he admitted. “It’s been a long week. I didn’t want to overdo it.”
“Sounds good.”
As he signaled to the bartender, she thought back to the last time she’d seen him. Graduation day, ten years before. They’d run in the same circle all four years of college, but they weren’t the kind of friends who did things together, just the two of them. Still, she’d assumed she and Nate would stay in contact after graduation. He’d had grand plans of joining the Peace Corps and saving the world, while she’d jumped right into the corporate life. They hadn’t kept in touch. A while back, she’d noticed he was a friend of a friend on Facebook and friended him. She’d found herself clicking over to his page every so often to see what he’d posted, if anything, and to look at his profile picture. Nate was on a mountaintop somewhere, his back to the sun, his face barely visible. She was equally curious about all her college buddies, she’d told herself. About two years ago, she’d discovered he’d changed his relationship status to married. She hadn’t checked again.
That salient detail in the front of her mind, she glanced at his left hand as he led her to the tables under the white tent. No ring. That didn’t mean much. Lots of men didn’t wear a wedding ring. Emma was disconcerted by the flash of feminine awareness she had of Nate as a man, grown up now, not a kid like the last time she’d seen him.
They reached an empty table, and he pulled out a chair for her.
“What have you been up to? Tell me everything.” She hoped her usual lively personality would carry her through this odd moment.
He took a sip of his drink and grinned. “That could take a while.”
“I’ve got all night.” She wondered if the words sounded as suggestive to him as they did to her.
He grinned again, and Emma’s soda water must have reacted with her previous beer because her stomach felt full of bubbles.
“Okay, I’ll try to be concise. I joined the Peace Corps, left when my two years were up, moved to San Diego, started law school, dropped out, moved to Brooklyn, and did a string of not very inspiring office jobs until I began apprenticing with a carpenter. That was about two years ago, and I’m actually making a decent living doing woodworking.”
“Amazing. I don’t know where to start. Woodworking? Like furniture or cabinets or sculpture?”
“All of the above, depending on what the customer wants.”
“I want it all,” Emma said, then laughed as Nate’s eyebrows lifted. “I’m renovating a brownstone in Brooklyn, actually. I’ve been looking for someone to do built-ins and spruce up some of the original trim.”
“You live in Brooklyn? I’m on 7th and Garfield.”
“4th Street near 5th Avenue.”
“I had no idea,” he said with feeling. “Huh.”
“We’re basically neighbors.”
“I can’t believe I haven’t seen you around. When I’m not working, I can pretty reliably be found in one of those about-to-be-hip bars in your neighborhood, which I, of course, have to abandon once they actually become hip.”
“Unfortunately, I work all the time. I only moved to Brooklyn last year. Before that I lived in the East Village.”
“Well, neighbor, when we’re back home, I’ll come take a look at your trim, and then I’ll take you out for a drink at this place called Sammy’s. Unless the hipsters find it before then.” He smiled at her again, slowly, with purpose, and the bubbles in her stomach were replaced by heat.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” she said to squelch that sensation. “You got married.”
His smile dimmed. “Not really. I mean, yeah, I got married. Then divorced.”
“Oh, Nate, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Was it relief she felt?
“It’s okay. It’s been over a year now, which is actually longer than our marriage lasted. When things fell apart with Alison, I finally figured out I’m completely dense where women are concerned. So I’ve been taking a break.”
He sounded sad, not at all like the Nate she had known, and she found she wanted to cheer him up. “And you came to your college reunion anyway? You’re a glutton for punishment.” She kept her voice light.
“What do you mean?”
“There are newlyweds and toddlers and people expecting freaking twins all over the place. Makes one feel positively backward.”
“You’re not here with anyone?”
“Certified singleton, that’s me.”
“Oh.” Nate didn’t seem to have a comeback to that, and silence fell between them. The awareness was back, prickling along her skin like static electricity. Was Nate thinking what she was thinking? They had never both been single at the same time in all the years they’d known each other. She was sure of it because if they had been, she might have done something about it—like told him to put his money where his flirty mouth was and ask her out.
Now here they were. Ten years later. No ties to anyone else. Could she have what she’d always been curious about? A night with Nate Hirsch. Did she really want to go there?
Sure, he was good-looking and funny and had a fantastic smile. He seemed to like her, and he didn’t have any major issues. Except he was divorced, and he thought he was clueless about women.
That didn’t matter as long she could teach him something about her.
The idea planted itself in her brain, and she couldn’t get it out.
“I’m surprised you haven’t been scooped up,” he said, breaking into her thoughts. “What happened to Christophe? I mean, if you want to talk about it.” He took a sip of his drink.
Was he nervous? She didn’t think she’d ever seen Nate Hirsch nervous about anything.
Christophe had been her boyfriend senior year. She’d been tempted to break up with him before senior week so she could have one last college fling, perhaps with Nate himself, since he’d split up with his longtime girlfriend, Kate, shortly before. But, like always, she’d believed she was in love.
“I don’t mind.” She smiled. “Cataloging my romantic failures is always good for entertainment.”
He looked guilty, and she laughed. “I kid. Christophe…he was a good guy. Very hot.”
“Really?” Nate looked dubious. “He always struck me as kind of a meathead jock.”
“Funny you should say that. We’d talked about moving to New York after graduation—that was always my plan, you know. It turns out he hated cities and waited until a week before our lease started to tell me he was taking off for New Zealand to intern at a sheep farm. I had to scrap the whole thing and move in with a bunch of NYU sorority sisters until I could find another place.”
“Total meathead,” he said. “You’re not the sheep-farmer type, Em.”
“No, I’m not. Weston is about as bucolic as I get. Only an hour away from the traffic and crowds of Boston.”
“Well, I’m sorry you guys didn’t work out.” He didn’t seem very sorry. “And you’ve lived in New York ever since?”
“Yeah. I was born a New Yorker, even though I’d never been there before I was eighteen. I’m trying to convince my parents to move east, but th
ey’re pretty stuck in California.”
“That’s where you grew up, right?”
“Yeah, Palo Alto. My dad teaches Chinese literature at Stanford. My mom actually works at Google now, in HR.”
“Cool,” he said. “And your brother?”
She was vaguely surprised he even remembered she had a brother.
“Mike’s in San Francisco. Also single. My parents have essentially given up on grandchildren.”
“But you’re so young. There’s lots of time.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t seem like it.”
“Well, there is.”
She smiled at him, appreciating his trying to make her feel better. “What about your family?” She thought he had parents who were still together and a sister, or maybe a brother, though she didn’t remember ever meeting them at parents’ weekend or anything.
“My parents are good. My dad retired last year—taught high school math for thirty years. My mom’s trying to get him to take an around-the-world cruise with her. So far, no luck. He’s not a big traveler. I told her she should go alone and make him fend for himself. After two weeks, I guarantee he’d show up in Costa Rica or wherever and beg her to take him with her.”
“That’s adorable, I think,” Emma said. “They sound pretty joined at the hip.”
“My mom worked part-time, but she’s basically taken care of him his entire adult life. And my brother and me.”
“What’s he up to?”
“Ben’s also a teacher, following in Dad’s footsteps. High school science, coaches track and field. Married. No kids yet.”
“Does that make you feel more pressure or less pressure?” she asked.
“Hmm…I’d say less. He’s two years older and married, so he and my sister-in-law would be the logical ones to start having kids.”
“You want kids?” She couldn’t not ask the question.
Nate’s smile faded, again giving Emma the impression he was uncharacteristically sad. “I do. But I’ve learned things don’t always work out, so if I get them, I’ll consider it a lucky break.”
“Yeah, I hear that.” A familiar old ache took up residence in her chest.
“Well, let’s change the subject.”
Sweet Imperfection Page 1
